In the light before the dawn, shadows shake in my peripheral

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

13/09/24 : Luck And Strange - David Gilmour

I had a recent visit with Mr Gilmour and didn't mind it but struggled to understand what everyone sees in his noodling - I imagine my response is going to be pretty much the same here.

Actually, I didn't mind this at all. It didn't seem to rely so heavily on his Pink Floyd style guitar playing and the songs seemed pretty well put together with some decent lyrical content. And, having previously complained about his noodling, the version I listened to featured "Luck And Strange (Original Barn Jam)" which was very noodly indeed and I really quite liked it - no-one said I was consistent. I can't see I'll be rushing back to it, but I thought it was a pretty decent effort.

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are the depressing combination of Sabrina Carpenter, Oasis, Oasis and Oasis (people are REALLY looking forward to seeing them, aren't they?). The other new entries in the chart are Fred Again (#7 - some nice electronic noodling, but possibly a little low-key for some), Rex Orange Country (#15 - some low-key, low-fi noodling which didn't quite hit the spot for me), Fat Dog (#16 - a somewhat undescribable something which definitely isn't low-key, with elements of "dance, punk and kletzmer" according to Wikipedia), The The (#19 - this sounded pretty much as I expected), Max Richter (#67 - some nice classical tunes) and Boston Manor (#97 - I quite liked this indie rock and well done to them for just squeaking in).

Last week I said that Nick Cave would drop to #63 and I was on the right lines but a bit over-enthusiastic because he's at #38 - I suspect we'll see a similar drop for Mr Gilmour so let's go for #36. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, a mere three in the top thirty and nine in the entire chart.

Wikipedia doesn't have a load on the album, but there are actually quite a few interesting facts on there! It's his fifth album, his third to get to #1, the lyrics were written by his wife, their kids (Gabriel, Charlie and Romany) also got involved in a variety of capacities and the photography is by Anton Corbijn (you'd never guess that, would you?). "Luck And Strange" features keyboards from Richard Wright recorded in '07, one year before his death and "Between Two Points" is a cover of a '99 track by The Montgolfier Brothers, who I've never ever heard of. The critics were nice enough about it (unsurprisingly, Rolling Stone liked it a lot) and it's done very well commercially, getting to #1 in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, top ten in a load of European countries and #10 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Richard Wright, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters and, quite obviously, Joss Stone. For the second week in a row, I've been pleasantly surprised by an old white guy - I think I particularly liked it because he's not overly relying on his Floyd roots. There's even a danger I might try to listen to it again some day - no higher praise is possible!

06/09/24 - Another pleasant surprise
20/09/24 - Nothing to scare the horses